Foreign government engagement with the military regime in Myanmar is an acknowledgement of effective control of a particular function, not an acknowledgement of legitimacy.
Key words: Myanmar, military regime, legitimacy, international recognition.
Myanmar’s government in exile and its supporters continue to call on the international community not to recognise the military regime[1]. Doing or saying anything perceived as giving recognition is condemned as legitimising behaviour. Building on a simple definition of legitimacy as the entitlement to govern and the acceptance of that entitlement by the people, this article investigates whether broadening acceptance to include the international community matters. Does the advocacy against recognition have a purpose beyond garnering international attention on Myanmar’s crisis?
In the aftermath of the 2021 military coup Myanmar’s government in exile, the self-styled National Unity Government (NUG), and its supporters called on the international community not to do or say anything that might be perceived as recognising the military regime. Similarly, following the military-managed 2025-2026 elections there were calls not to recognise the ballot outcome which saw the military-aligned party secure a majority of seats. Advocacy groups such as the Myanmar Campaign Network (a coalition of Australian NGOs, diaspora groups, unions and faith organisations) has only two objectives, one of which is pursuit of international recognition of the NUG as the legitimate government. The issue of recognition looms large among those seeking to influence the international community’s response to the Myanmar crisis.
All contact with the military regime is decried as recognition and legitimising behaviour. It is an accusation levelled against individuals and organisations such as United Nations agencies seeking entry or travel permits that of necessity bring them into contact with the regime. Some critics go so far as to say having contact makes the individual or organisation complicit in the commission of atrocity crimes and human rights abuses.
I argue that the pursuit of denial of international recognition of the military regime is an odd goal when it is not common practice for governments to formally declare recognition or non-recognition of a foreign government. Occasionally statements of non-recognition are made as a political expression, but they are performative and have little practical consequence. They might diminish perceptions of legitimacy, but they do not change who is in effective control.
The force and frequency of the calls, both before and after the 2025/2026 elections, reveal a strongly held view that international recognition is significant in determining the legitimacy of a government. That is, that legitimacy is not solely a matter of acceptance by the citizenry but also a matter of acceptance by the international community expressed through acts of recognition.
I suggest that the calls to deny recognition may be motivated by two considerations. First, the focus on recognition may be a tactic to interrupt a process of creeping normalisation by creating an action that, once taken, forestalls normalisation. Secondly, keeping recognition a live issue may help maintain international attention on what’s happening in Myanmar—it commands foreign governments to consider their response to the coup.
Recognition of states rather than governments
From Beijing to Brussels there is no doubt that the National League for Democracy overwhelmingly won the 2020 elections, earning them the entitlement to govern, and an awareness that this entitlement was accepted by the people of Myanmar. However, notwithstanding this awareness, the widespread condemnation of the coup and the calls to not recognise the regime, no foreign government has formally recognised the NUG as the legitimate government of Myanmar, not even the governments that stridently advocated for and supported Myanmar’s democratic transition.
Formal recognition has proven elusive largely because it is not customary practice to make formal statements of recognition of governments. Under the Estrada Doctrine, governments confine themselves to the recognition of states regarding it as not a matter for a single foreign government to determine the legal status of another government. Furthermore, there is no established mechanism or process for collectively determining the status of governments. The logical consequence is that as foreign recognition is absent from customary international practice it cannot be a necessary precondition or basis for legitimacy.
Although not customary practice, examples can be found where recognition/non-recognition has been used as a political statement. On these relatively rare occasions it is a symbolic gesture with little substantive meaning. A government that states that it does not recognise a particular regime is not precluded from dealing with that regime and will do so when it considers it necessary. The non-binding nature of recognition diminishes the utility of the gesture to an expression of approval or disapproval. It is more a statement of values than a means to pressure a regime.
This preference to avoid getting involved in determinations of recognition can be seen also in the response to the NUG’s establishment of representative offices to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and in eight countries, including Australia. None of these countries has recognised the NUG presence as a diplomatic mission and accorded the staff diplomatic status.
The United Nations also does not have a policy or procedure for the recognition of governments as it is a collection of States, a number of whom have governments that also have come to power through violent or unconstitutional means. However, the UN does, through its Credentials Committee, need to decide who represents a foreign government when representation is contested. The UN faced this dilemma when Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Kyaw Moe Tun, denounced the coup and told the General Assembly that he was remaining loyal to the democratically elected government and remained Myanmar’s permanent representative. The military junta responded by sacking him and advising the UN that the deputy permanent representative was now the acting permanent representative. Ultimately, the UN Credentials Committee agreed to defer making a decision on the contested claims to represent Myanmar, leaving Kyaw Moe Tun in place. In other UN bodies Myanmar’s seat has been left unfilled.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the global organisation of national parliaments with a mandate to defend the rights of parliamentarians facing abuse or mistreatment, is different. It has accepted representative members of parliament ousted in the 2021 coup as Myanmar’s delegation to IPU events and continued to do so even after the 2025-2026 sham elections which saw the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party secure a majority of seats. As the IPU is a body of parliaments, rather than governments, participation by NUG parliamentarians is not equivalent to recognition of the NUG as the government of Myanmar.
International relations involve more than virtue signalling
By not proclaiming recognition or non-recognition after every national election that occurs around the world, governments leave themselves free to signal their views by the level and nature of their engagement with the government. Attitudes are evident through the imposition of sanctions, the number and level of official visits, letters of congratulations, changes in the diplomatic footprint (e.g. downgrading representation from ambassador to chargé d’affaires or shutting the embassy altogether), adjustments to development assistance programs, the extent of technical or defence cooperation, through statements expressing concern at developments and in voting patterns in the UN General Assembly. After Myanmar’s coup, Australia and at least 10 other nations installed chargés d’affaires while Finland and Denmark announced closure of their embassies. Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the United States have imposed targeted sanctions on named individuals and entities.
Engagement with a government that has come to power through unconstitutional or violent means is often decried by the public as recognition. They regard foreign policy as a vector for the articulation and promotion of the nation’s values. However, the Estrada Doctrine was adopted and the policy of formally recognising governments abandoned precisely because recognition led to public assumptions of approval or disapproval of the government concerned. Ironically, the criticism of engagement acknowledges that recognition does not require a declaration and can be implied through behaviour.
Governments, by avoiding a binary choice about recognition, preserve for themselves the option to moderate up or down their level of engagement with the authorities in effective control. Such calibrated behaviour is not solely driven by legitimacy considerations. Relations between governments are shaped also by proximity, importance, shared interests, historical connections, global strategic alignments and popular opinion—no single consideration is inherently privileged above all others.
The paradox of recognition
With formal recognition elusive, why have the NUG and international advocacy groups put so much effort into arguing for it? Their reasons have not been expressly articulated but we can imagine that there might be a belief, or hope, that it will lead to access to Myanmar’s foreign exchange reserves held at the US Federal Reserve, believed to amount to over USD1 billion. Similarly, hope of enhanced financial and materiel assistance from donor countries might be at the forefront of NUG strategic thinking (even though formal recognition is not a requirement for the provision of assistance). Perhaps also there is a hope that recognition would lead to the acceptance of NUG-issued travel documents for the benefit of the Myanmar diaspora, including those forced to flee for their safety. But there is no certainty that these developments would flow from NUG recognition. Even if recognition of the NUG was announced by a foreign ministry, it would not change the reality within Myanmar where the junta—and now the pseudo-civilian government—commands the coercive powers of the state and controls the political, commercial and cultural capitals, government departments, the central bank and much else in the country.
The paradox is better explained by the fear that, with the passage of time, the NUG’s claim to government is weakened partly by growing distance from its electoral mandate, partly by the emergence of new political authorities in ethnic minority areas and partly by regional impatience. With growing distance from the coup, contact with the military regime becomes normalised and more nations, international organisations and businesses will engage with the regime thereby giving it a greater semblance of legitimacy. The Foreign Ministers of China and Thailand called on Min Aung Hlaing shortly after his installation as President in April 2026. And in his first three months as president, Min Aung Hlaing embarked on a diplomatic normalisation offensive with official visits to India, China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Normalisation of relations with the military regime is gathering pace.
By making recognition the issue, the threat of an organic normalisation process is replaced by an action that terminates the process. Recognition appeals as it imagines something, an action, that prevents multifaceted normalisation. The denial of recognition of the military-civilian government need only be announced once and it is crystalised. And as it will have been formed out of a principle it is harder to dissolve. Harder, but not impossible as in practice governments are not constrained by statements of recognition.
The weaponisation of contact
Regime critics argue that meetings, even those by the United Nations Special Envoy, are weaponised by the regime and therefore should not take place. Calling out and criticising international organisations and businesses for any contact with the military regime is continuing. Organisations such as Burma Campaign UK denounce all foreign businesses that have even accidental connections with the military or its conglomerates. Renting space in a building that is on land owned by a conglomerate will generate accusations of legitimising the regime and being complicit in atrocity crimes and human rights abuses. The NUG’s foreign investment policy makes clear it won’t recognise nor honour foreign investment approved under the military regime, even if the investment is beneficial and independent of the military and the state. Heightening fear of commercial loss is being deployed to deter contact with the military government because recognition is seen as implicit in any contact.
Similarly, NUG principles governing international humanitarian assistance instruct humanitarian agencies not to engage with the military regime to avoid legitimising the regime. Even following the devastating 28 March 2025 earthquake, donors were urged to channel assistance through local community groups and frontline responders in collaboration with the NUG, ethnic resistance organisations and civil society. International agencies seeking to reach affected areas needed permissions from the regime for entry visas, relief flights and travel approvals. Engaging the military regime to deliver earthquake relief was characterised as complicity and as carrying the risk of enabling a regime responsible for atrocity crimes.
The weaponisation of contact seeks, by shaming, to prevent behaviour that presents as an acceptance of the entitlement to govern—to prevent the impression of legitimacy. However judging contact with the military regime as legitimation is a false equivalence inspired by appearances rather than substance. It is possible, and sometimes necessary, to have contact and engage with the regime while not accepting sham elections or an entitlement to government. It’s an acknowledgement of effective control of a particular function, not an acknowledgement of legitimacy. This distinction is starting to be accepted by international non-governmental organisations who are asking governments to publish clear operational principles to guide non-avoidable engagement between development partners and regime bodies.
The imagination of a nexus between international recognition and legitimacy is not confined to the NUG and its supporters. On almost every day the regime’s official mouthpiece, the Global New Light of Myanmar, features meetings between regime figures and visiting dignitaries. Min Aung Hlaing’s diplomatic offensive seeks a normalisation of relations, bilaterally and within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and through the demonstration of greater international acceptance he hopes to secure greater domestic acceptance. International engagement is presented as evidence of both ‘business as usual’ and recognition of it as the legitimate government.
Elections as a legitimation strategy
The 2025-2026 military-managed elections resulted in a shift from governing under a state of emergency to pseudo parliamentary and constitutional rule. They simulated compliance with international democratic norms in a deliberate effort to convey a sense of normalcy and of being in effective control of the apparatus of the state. They were deeply flawed and nothing more than an attempt to convince a wary public and international community that normalcy had been restored. Their aim was to supplant the NUG’s electoral mandate secured five years previously while preserving the status quo of military rule. The elections heightened pre-existing fears of a creeping normalisation of relations and generated numerous calls to reject the elections and not engage in any act that may confer legitimacy.
The military’s election legitimation strategy was designed to position Myanmar as not so different from others in Southeast Asia where authoritarian elections and dealing with authoritarian regimes is not unusual. While the elections did not produce formal statements of recognition, regional countries (e.g. Thailand, Russia, Vietnam, Malaysia) are stepping up their engagement with the authorities in Naypyitaw. However, there are no signs (yet) that the shift from state of emergency rule to pseudo parliamentary rule is changing perceptions of legitimacy among Western countries. They have not accepted the validity of the elections and are maintaining their limited targeted sanctions and distance from the regime. The international goodwill that followed Thein Sein’s reforms from 2010 and the election of the National League for Democracy in 2015 is not in evidence following the 2025-2026 elections and is unlikely to return anytime soon.
Stability and prosperity can generate legitimacy
Nor will the elections, in themselves, secure acceptance by the people of the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party’s entitlement to govern. Many autocracies survive and gain legitimacy by delivering a combination of stability and prosperity. However, the military regime’s strategy of constant warfare involving conscription, repression and relentless attacks on communities makes stability in Myanmar, always elusive, even less likely. And the coup and economic mismanagement by generals have diminished the prospects for prosperity. Problems with an unreliable power supply, regulatory uncertainty, foreign exchange shortages, inflation, ongoing security issues and poor governance will not disappear automatically following the elections.
The post-election pseudo civilian government will need to reach some sort of accommodation with the disparate elements of the resistance movement to secure stability; and to demonstrate an ability to manage the economy competently to secure popular acceptance of their claim to an entitlement to govern. Neither are in sight.
The people of Myanmar and much of the rest of the world want a legitimate government in effective control of the country. Neither the military nor the NUG have been formally recognised as the government of Myanmar by other governments because it is not customary practice to do so. International recognition cannot therefore be determinative of legitimacy. It is neither a necessary condition for legitimacy nor a vehicle for securing effective control of the organs of the state. When the NUG overcomes the fragmentation of authority evident in its inability to build a united coalition and secures effective control of the state it will begin to be treated as the government of Myanmar, and that is without it needing to be formally recognised as such. The absence of formal acts of recognition would not diminish its legitimacy, but a failure to renew its electoral mandate would.
[1] For the purpose of this article, the term “military regime” is used to encompass the military-controlled or aligned entities including the State Administration Council, the State Security and Peace Commission and the Union Solidarity and Development Party-led government formed in 2026.
Nicholas Coppel is Honorary (Fellow) in Melbourne University’s School of Social and Political Sciences. He is a former Australian Ambassador to Myanmar (2015-2018) and with Associate Professor Lennon Chang the author of ‘Myanmar’s Digital Coup: How the World Responded’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).
Image: Min Aung Hlaing and Narendra Modi in Bangkok, Thailand, 2025. Credit: Ministry of External Affairs, India/Flickr.
